Applications for Windows Phone 7 won't contain porn or decapitation - but while the rules may be limiting they are public, unlike Apple's.
Microsoft has published complete details of the application submission process for apps developed for Windows Mobile 7 (pdf), and porn is definitely out along with big nasty violence. But …

Agreed

Re: part of society

Actually, my guess is that they are trying to get the yoof share of the market. Obviously, the little tykes are too young to move out of mommy's house (or can't afford it out of college), so parents are expected to provide the latest accessories of leisure and status.

After all, if MS expects them to run the same OS from cradle to grave, they might as well get used to it being everywhere. No smut simply is a selling point for a phone that the buyer doesn't have to use.

So no port of Doom or Quake?

Google should adopt the marketing tag line "Android. Phones for grown ups." - Personally I have no problem with Microsoft wanting to do their bit to fance off their platform from the adult stuff, but why can't they rely on ratings systems and disclaimers just as video games and adult web sites do? It should be "buyer beware", I don't want a nanny with my phone.

There is plenty of gore on Nintendo DS, even some scantily clad game characters. Why are phones so special.

Re: Millstones

Banning it all, in any form, is thier ultimate goal. How else to shield everyone's all-to-vulnerable-to-temptation soul, eh? We will worry about tightening THAT standard even more when we want to burn the next group of "heretics".

violence

Stil leaves some scope to annoy them

Still leaves strangulation, drowning, hanging etc, quick trip to the London Dungeons and we could probably come up with enough ideas to give their legal department a nervous breakdown, or at the very least writers cramp

Developer confidence?

>> "but what's missing is Apple's catch-all clause which says Cupertino can reject any application without explanation, which should give developers some confidence."

Right, because we all know that the most important stakeholder is the developer. This opens up the chance of unsuitable or unwanted content squeezing in through a technicality or misrepresentation of the semantics of the policies.

Screw giving end-users the confidence of what will be available on their devices.

@DZ-Jay

"Screw giving end-users the confidence of what will be available on their devices."

So you feel that microsoft's explicit developer terms are bad for end users, but you don't have a problem with apple's "we can and will do anything we want, at any time, without good reason" developer terms?

I'm no microsoft sympathizer, hell they're copying apple's closed garden so that both developers and users loose. However with regards to treating developers as grown ups, I trust that microsoft will do a far better job than apple.

BTW you never got around to answering what your affiliation is with apple.

@Martin Nicholls

I know, but then you've got posters like DZ-Jay arguing that less choice and freedom is beneficial for customers. That's so irrational I have to assume that he's affiliated with apple. Read his posts, you'll see what I mean.

You can have all the porn you want.

You can have all the porn you want on your iPhone, Apple just won't put it on there FOR you. I don't know why this concept is difficult to understand. Its not like they have some filter preventing you from doing it yourself, or even downloading and saving any pictures you like, and flipping though them at your leisure.

Its like being mad because a company that makes DVD players won't pack in half a dozen porno DVDs with each unit. My iPhone didn't come packed with humor videos, and there is no app to keep my phone stocked with them, yet there they are. Am I being censored because I had to do it myself?

People complaining about this are not being censored, merely lazy. Is instant, on tap porn really all that critical? If you are that desperate, try going offline and meeting actual women, its not that difficult.

Hmmm...

Your analogy isn't quite right. It's more like me buying a Sony DVD player, and Sony saying you can only play DVDs you buy from us, oh and we are going to censor all your DVDs so that they only contains the films that we want you to watch (unless you jailbreak your DVD player).

Oh and BTW, you can only use your DVD player once you've installed some software on your PC that you probably don't want and would have never installed in the first place.

And while we are at it, you can only plug it in to the mains if your leccy supplier is Scottish power.

Correction

The correct analogy would be its like sony not allowing you to watch porn via an on demand service (like some of their tellys or the pana blueray/Freesat boxes). But still allowing you to put in porn BR's.

Your DVD player lacks a browser

If you so need that porn and gore you may feel free on your smartphone to crack open the browser and go to town. WP7 will support flash as well, so no part of the dirty web will be off limits to you. MS is simply laying down the rules for what can be sold in their store. If you really just have to get porn from every possible place my twisted firend then go ahead and enjoy your android device I suppose. Most folks have no need for such apps and will be happier that the app store isn't cluttered up with such garbage.

Apple chooses to be the platform tyrant.

> You can have all the porn you want on your iPhone, Apple just won't put it on there FOR you.

It will also actively interfere with your ability to put it on there yourself. This issue only comes up because Apple chooses to be a platform tyrant. If they ceased treating their end users like children, the point would be moot.

It's not laziness to not want to hack a device just so you can use it like an adult.

Porn is just a distraction. The underlying problem is platform control and censorship. Porn is just Steve's excuse so that he can make the entire situation sound more palatable.

It's the kind of approach that belongs in Branson rather than SFO or NYC.

re-untiltled

dana w said..

You can have all the porn you want on your iPhone, Apple just won't put it on there FOR you. I don't know why this concept is difficult to understand. Its not like they have some filter preventing you from doing it yourself, or even downloading and saving any pictures you like, and flipping though them at your leisure.

No I could not cause I will never ever have itunes on my pc so your argument is bollocks

No not really

Converting and adding your own videos, porn or otherwise is free, and requires no "jaibreaking" My iPhone is stuffed with Youtube. "And a few good DVDS.

I don't understand what people are mad at, if you don't want an iPhone, don't buy one. What gets me is everyone's complaining about it, but they don't just use their dollars, and buy something else.

Nobody MAKES anyone buy an iPhone, get something else and stop whining about the fact that everyone else is having fun. Seriously, this is like arguing about sex with Baptists. You guys are just mad because you hate iPhone and people refuse to agree with you and hate it too.

"Exploding body parts"

@Bill Ray

"That's assuming there are any developers; there still aren't any Windows Phone 7 handsets to play with, and the demonstrated feature set is unimpressive compared to Apple's iPhone 4 and even what Android is offering these days."

What? Let's get a few things clear. It is a GOOD thing that all of the developer support material and the SDK are available well in advance of the handsets. This allows developers time to begin working on applcations prior to handset release increasing the potential for a library of quality apps at release. That's far better than Google's approach of just dropping new code with no lead time given to developers to deal with the fact that their apps are now busted by the newest fragment. The Windows Phone 7 SDK is lightyears better than what Apple has available. What feature set exactly does the iPhone and Adroid have that WP7 is missing out on? I can think of a few things WP7 has going for it that iPhone and Android don't. For the business folks there is full proper integration with Exchange and Sharepoint along with actual security features. For the youngins there are XNA based games. Devs have already ported games built for Xbox Live to WP7 with very few tweaks because they both use XNA. Microsoft is working on being very good to the devs with WP7. It is the same approach they took with Xbox that allowed them to come from nowhere to overtake Sony.

Doesn't really matter

...and ...and

And no fat chicks in spandex, and midgets in drag, or them brown people. Fuck you Microsoft, and fuck you Apple. Letting companies tell you what you can install on your devices is an awesome trend, so keep buying those Iphones and Win7 devices.

Porn ban on beta?

Porn on Betamax

There was p0rn on Betamax.

The big problem was the size of film that could contained on a physical media item. Longer movies required 2 Betamax tapes, but only 1 VHS - hence VHS was the preferred medium for film distributors and home buyers alike.

christian nazis rock - when their blitzkrieg begins to roll.

Isn't is fun how all these tossers base their "righteousness" on the badness of the body and sex, and that comes out of a book , that was written by shit fro brains cultists, who all write different and conflicting things to suit themselves as they go along, and then the idiots who ripped off the Code of Hammurabi from Babylon, are now getting these whacko's creating more rules to suite themselves as they go along, that everyone else has to be subjected too.

I like online sex, I won't buy your christian nazi product tho - nor will I be tailed by the company thought police, for saying Microsoft and Apple suck big time.

so, the native apps

I'm honestly a little surprised

Not that M$ won't allow pr0n in their app store, but that they're following in Apple's footsteps and telling people what they can and can't install on their own hardware. I would have thought they'd try to differentiate themselves a bit. If M$ insists on using the same F'd up business model, why would anyone choose their phone over the already popular iPhone?

Betamax

@Dana W, quite being such a damn fanboi. Banning apps and not bundling apps with the phone are two unrelated things and you know it. (Second sign of fanboi'ism, you are defending Apple for banning porn when the article is about Microsoft being Jobsian this time.)

"Its like being mad because a company that makes DVD players won't pack in half a dozen porno DVDs with each unit"

No it's like buying VHS instead of Betamax, because Sony banned porned on Beta. Which Sony did; and even customers who never actually bought a porno tape, bought VHS instead. It was one factor that led to Beta's demise even though it was a technically better tape format. I'm SQUARELY in that camp -- I wouldn't buy a porn app, but nevertheless would buy a phone that doesn't restrict my choices over one that does.

------------------

Anyway... This is dumb, since the browser can pull up unlimited porn, other than videos -- which, despite Jobs denying it, are often flash. Along with everything else on that "banned" list. They (both Apple and Microsoft, and Google if they haven't already) should just stick it in some "over 18" section.

No.

For a start I'm not a "boy" anything, second, my original statement still stands. You can have all the porn you want on your iPhone, Apple just won't put it there for you. Why does Apple have to be a porn store if they don't want to be? Its called freedom of choice, they don't have to sell porn and you don't need to buy an iPhone. If Apple is so horrible why do any of you care? Vote with your money and buy elsewhere. You have every right to NOT by Apple products. Its ok, we won't miss you. I hear there are great sale prices on ZUNE HD as we speak. And Android is ready when you are.

What you really hate is the fact that millions of people like it just fine and us geeks are not the core technology market anymore. Yes, sucks to be us. But there it is.

Your VHS vs Betamax argument is silly simply for the fact that VHS and Betamax are physical media. With a computer any file format is any other file format using Handbrake or Max, I crunch video and audio constantly.

And funnier still is the fact that Microsoft is so intellectually bankrupt they are even trying to copy parts of Apple's business model. Before you know it , Steve Ballmer will be appearing in jeans and a black turtleneck. Heh, I bet Ballmer gets an organ transplant next. Whats he best suited for? A Heart or a brain?

Asocial

MS is clever

They've finally realised that people want some consistency and software that actually works and not be afraid of using to loose their details...Good on them putting some checks and balances on their store, it's that lack of verification on the Google MarketPlace that stops my wife, and me using it....

I can't believe there are so many dumb posts about the Apple model...You can put any logical type of media on it regarding any subject, all you do is convert it into the correct format. No need to compromise your device through jail breaking and the sorts. Sure you can't download it through the online iTunes store on the device but it doesn't limit you to the iTunes Store so what is the problem?

Wish it were a quality standard, not political one!

I find perving at a tiny screen, well, unsatisfying - much like over compressed and DRM corrupted audio on earbuds. Wish that were banned. Holding the phone in one hand and tossing with the other doesn't work for me!